Medical equipment tracking system using hybrid QR code, wi-fi and ultra-wideband

Abstract

Tracking technology is getting widely used in hospitals and is expected to assist in tracing the location of medical equipment and preventing medical equipment from loss or misplacement. However, the current tracking devices have some drawbacks such as low accuracy, low coverage area and high power consumption. The objective of this study is to develop a new hybrid tracking system to overcome these drawbacks. A new tracker device that uses Ultra-Wide Band (UWB) as the main module which has a high level of accuracy was developed and tested in this study. This study also presented several methods for improving the coverage area of the new tracker system, such as mapping the Received Signal Strength (RSS) of DWM1001-UWB anchors, combining it with an ESP8266-Wi-Fi module for a wider range of coverage area and using QR Code as a backup solution when the UWB and Wi-Fi modules are not working optimally. Additionally, this study has also optimized the battery life of the new tracker by removing the responsive mode of the UWB module. The new tracker was tested in a simulation-lab environment. The data of the movement of the tracker was collected in the JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) form and has been visualized by using Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) method to the web-application. It was discovered that the new tracker has an accuracy of 74.6 mm-113.6 mm. It was also discovered that combining UWB with Wi-Fi and QR-Code as a hybrid system with one web-application can improve the tracker's coverage area. The battery lifetime of the new tracker was also estimated based on the type of usage and this can assist in ensuring that the tracker is constantly operating and does not lose signal due to running out of power. Results showed that with the typical active usage of 8 hours/day, the new tracker is capable of operating for 14.7 months. This study has succeeded in realizing a new hybrid tracker system with higher accuracy, higher coverage area and lower power consumption, consisting of UWB as the main module, with Wi-Fi module and QR-Code as a backup solution. The new tracker can become a single unit board and integrated in a single web-application.